Memorial Day may be known as the unofficial start to summer – barbecues and parades galore. It’s a federal holiday, set aside each year to honor, remember, and mourn the United States military personnel who died while serving our country in the armed forces.
Several municipalities claim to have started Memorial Day. One – is Boalsburg, just outside State College in Centre County.
According to the National Archives, it was October of 1864 when three women from Boalsburg walked to a cemetery to place flowers and wreaths on the graves of two local men who had died while fighting for the Union during the Civil War. They then decided to decorate the graves of all soldiers in the cemetery. Eventually they agreed to return again the next year, on July 4th, and decorate them once a year. It was known as “Decoration Day.”
It wasn’t widely observed until 4 years later, when General John A. Logan, of the Grand Army of the Republic, gave a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which thousands of people helped decorate the graves of thousands of soldiers buried there. A few more years after that, New York became the first state to designate Memorial Day as a legal holiday.
A life-size bronze statue of the three women from Boalsburg was dedicated at the cemetery in Centre County, and a celebration in honor of the fallen has happened there each year since.
